Education in Uttarakhand

The department of education in Uttarakhand is basically a vast structure which incorporates within its fold primary education, secondary education and the state council of educational research and training. Uttarakhand Sabhi Ke Liye Shiksha Parishad has also been put in place to implement education for all in the state which boasts of a very high literacy rate, much higher than the national average. The government has introduced necessary steps to make the children school-bound and also to attract the drop-outs back to their schools.

The Uttarakhand board of schools and examinations functions under the aegis of the Directorate of School Education and provides wide employment opportunities within the state. Uttarakhand contains some of the premier institutes of education in the country, headed by the famous Indian Institute of Technology at Roorkee. To encourage the spread of education at Uttarakhand, the government is ensuring that poor but brilliant students in its rural areas receive free and first rate education at the Rajiv Gandhi Navodaya Vidyalaya residential schools. Mid-day meals and co-curricular activities are some of the ways that have been introduced to popularize education in the state.

Uttarakhand education received a fillip after the government introduced Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in secondary education. The department of education, Uttarakhand, has attained the target of computerizing all 1,700 government high schools and government inter-colleges (GICs) in the state, providing at least four computers per school. The government has also implemented training and orientation programs for the teaching and administration staff serving these schools, in collaboration with Microsoft India.

According to the 2011 census, the state of Uttarakhand has a literacy rate of 79.63% with 88.33% for males and 70.70% for females. The literacy rate has increased from the last census. The state has Government and private schools, primary and high Schools, Inter collages, Degree collages and other Technical institutions. The medium of education is either in English or Hindi. The schools are affiliated with CBSE, CISCE or the State Government Syllabus defined as per the Department of Education, Uttarakhand Government.